X.7, I personally found much crisper than xt. I have never used xtr more then on a demo bike and marvelling at the cost (I get the same look as when I look at x.0) I am switching everything to sram now. Shimano doesn't really compare at this point (I really hate rapid rise )

All things equal (shifting) I just don't like the mindset of rapid rise. It just don't jive man...when I press with my thumb in a panic situation I want pedallling to get easier. If I need to shift a TONNE of gears, going easier works with my mindset. I can never think of a reason to shift a tonne to go into a harder gear, 80% of the time on trails, I get more speed laying of the brake than I would pedalling harder.

All things equal (shifting) I just don't like the mindset of rapid rise. It just don't jive man...when I press with my thumb in a panic situation I want pedallling to get easier. If I need to shift a TONNE of gears, going easier works with my mindset. I can never think of a reason to shift a tonne to go into a harder gear, 80% of the time on trails, I get more speed laying of the brake than I would pedalling harder.

It's one of those things that actually takes A LOT of getting used to but it does have a much crisper shifing motion than old standard spring once you actually figure the stupid thing out. When you couple it with the dual-control levers, it actually is a pretty intuitive setup since dumping your gears doesn't require much effort (you just flip the lever with the tops of your fingers while keeping your thumb engaged...it's nice once you realize the benefits of keeping your thumb on the grips.)

The funny thing is, I bought the dual-control levers about two months before I changed to RR and I thought they would take a lot of getting used to. One ride into using them however, using them became second nature. With the RR however, it was so counter-intuitive to "pull" on a down-shift that it took months before I was totally used to it. We're so conditioned towards the old system that something new like RR is totally foreign.

i currently have a sram x7 on my bike. I have the money, and would it be worth me getting xt or xtr?

If you were to have asked me this 5 years ago, I would have said, "sure... go for XT or if you have the cash to blow... XTR." But things are different today and I would say that SRAM is more in touch with what I want from a MTB group than Shimano's top-end groups.

Is it because it doesn't shift well or because you haven't gotten used to the reversed trigger pattern?

Rapid-Rise sucks in many ways, IMHO. For the non-XC racer who hasn't had a chance to go over and preview every trail/course, the Rapid-Rise introduces many annoyances beyond just having to rethink which direction to shift. The first is that you have to click your way in the downshift direction one gear at a time. This can really make or break clearing an obstacle or setting up a line or maintaining your speed/cadence when climbing a hill that's surprised you. Another thing is the gate-lag which means that you have to rotate through a certain arc before the shift actually happens regardless of when you initiated the shift from the shifters... and this happens on the downshift. Also, this gate-lag is more apparent when you're moving slowly. That is the rate at which you can shift is dependent on how fast the rear wheel is moving. Additionally, you can compound the problem when trying to force a shift. You can force the shift with traditional derailleurs no-problem but if you do it with Rapid-Rise and miss the gate then you succumb to the lag. Also, another problem with Rapid-Rise is that it is more prone to mis-shifting in the downshift direction when the cables or mechanism gets gunked up. Basically, Rapid-Rise favours upshifting but does so by sacrificing downshift performance. And as most MTBers can testify, it's usually more critical to hit the downshift than the upshift unless you're on a well-known trail in an XC race.

I have the rapid rise shimano shifters...once I became used to them I'm quite comfortable with them. I haven't used SRAM but I am going to try it at some point just because everyone says it's oh so good

No way! If you want to spend money just for the sake of spending go with X.0. This is what I am running now after XTR and there is no comparison. The only thing that was holdng me back were the X.0 grip shifters until I found out I could use the X.9 triggers. The only thing better than a SRAM drive train is Single Speed!

I have no experience with SRAM except their chains. I have four bikes in the family with different flavors of Shimano MTB components (Alivo through XT). Except for the bike with Alivo components, I could never detect much difference in shifting performance. I regeared one of my MTB's with a new XTR cassette because of a ratio change I wanted, and the improvement in shifting crispness was impressive, definitely the best of the bunch. It was worth the extra $25.